What are your "must have" features? If you're not OCing you may actually be able to get similar performance for significantly less money.

I don't think I've spent more than $130 on a motherboard since... a long time ago. Probably around 2007 timeframe.

Must have.....stable and reliable!I'll be using a IB 3570 and probably a 7870, but I worry that cheaper mobo's cut corners.I'm happy to pay the $193 just as long as someone doesn't tell me it has some weird problem.

What are your "must have" features? If you're not OCing you may actually be able to get similar performance for significantly less money.

I don't think I've spent more than $130 on a motherboard since... a long time ago. Probably around 2007 timeframe.

Must have.....stable and reliable!I'll be using a IB 3570 and probably a 7870, but I worry that cheaper mobo's cut corners.I'm happy to pay the $193 just as long as someone doesn't tell me it has some weird problem.

Those expensive boards are for overclocked stability and reliability- the 'normal' boards are just plain stable and reliable. If you don't need the extra features (WiFi?), you wouldn't be losing anything by going with a less expensive ASUS board.

Those expensive boards are for overclocked stability and reliability- the 'normal' boards are just plain stable and reliable. If you don't need the extra features (WiFi?), you wouldn't be losing anything by going with a less expensive ASUS board.

Thx for that....I'll get the ASUS for $193, then I only have to decide on ram and SSD and I'm done.This is what it'll look like.

This is making no sense at all. Stable and reliable aren't "features" and stable and reliable can be had for $100. HardOCP put a $100 ASRock board in it's incubator for 4 days straight and it never complained. Stable and reliable.

What FEATURES do you want?Intel-powered NIC?Number of phases is unimportant, especially if not overclocking.Multi-GPU?Number of PCIe slots?Need any PCI slots?

I get the impression the belief is that high price guarantees you something. It guarantees you pay a high price, but that's about all. This certainly isn't smart shopping.

My current Gigabyte motherboard cost me $80 and it's been absolutely stable and reliable for 4 years.

If you want the /most/ stable and reliable you'd be shopping for a Xeon 12xx series chip and a C204 or C206 workstation motherboard and plugging in ECC RAM.

I want a full sized ATX so that I can have a GPU and 2 PCI cards.I also need a mobo which will accept Antec 1100's usb3 plug for the front USB ports, and the $193 asus seems to have that as well.

*That's* what I meant when I asked what features you need. But you don't need to pay $193 to get those features...

TBH stability of all but the bottom tier Asus motherboards is generally quite good. I ran an M3A78-CM for years as my main desktop, with the CPU at 100% 24x7 for most of that time (Folding@home in the background). Never skipped a beat, and although it is no longer used as a desktop it is still pulling file server duty. IIRC I originally paid something like $80 for it. Current desktops (home and work) are both using motherboards from the M5A97 series, and they are rock solid too. Aside from being an AMD board, the M5A97 R2.0 has all the features on your list... in a $100 board.

As others have noted, more expensive boards get you more overclocking features. 12-phase power is ridiculous overkill for a rig that is going to run at stock. But if you've just gotta have the one that "goes to 12" and have extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, be my guest.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

thing is, i'll be using a 2slot GPU and have a sound and HDTV card that will require 2 PCI slots.....and the smaller boards won't accommodate that unless I can use a PCIe slot for PCI...?

The M5A97 R2.0 I mentioned above is a full-size board with 2x PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1, and 2x classic PCI. Double-wide GPU blocks one of the PCIe x1, not the classic PCI. I haven't priced out Intel boards lately, but surely there is something similar on that side of the house?

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

thing is, i'll be using a 2slot GPU and have a sound and HDTV card that will require 2 PCI slots.....and the smaller boards won't accommodate that unless I can use a PCIe slot for PCI...?

The M5A97 R2.0 I mentioned above is a full-size board with 2x PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1, and 2x classic PCI. Double-wide GPU blocks one of the PCIe x1, not the classic PCI. I haven't priced out Intel boards lately, but surely there is something similar on that side of the house?

Meh, let him spend the money. He can't be tight on funds or else he wouldn't be selecting $200 motherboards so nonchalantly.

If you want the /most/ stable and reliable you'd be shopping for a Xeon 12xx series chip and a C204 or C206 workstation motherboard and plugging in ECC RAM.

This.

Yup, between a $100 motherboard with proper ECC support and a $200 one with 12-phase VRM the choice is clear!

(And yes, my M5A97 is running with ECC enabled. )

And then there is AVR capable UPS for power reliability+stability, whole-house surge protection to make sure you don't kill that UPS, redundant power supplies, RAID1 for uptime, offsite backup for real backup, ... We are fully capable of spending other people's money.

The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

Look at all the MSI failures. I never have bought an MSI board - always trusted Asus or Gigabyte (and recently have done 4 builds using ASRock). This isn't making me ever want to change that.

I stopped buying MSI motherboards a while back as well. My general take on them back in the day was that the boards were designed reasonably well, but build quality (especially the capacitors they used) was rather lacking. My old MSI K7Pro did many years of duty as a file server after I did a DIY recap job on it.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson